Epicurus: “Those who eat together, stay together.”




DK Photos: Cardinals Breaking Bread. 4:45 pm. April 28, 2024. Darien, CT

Guess.What.Day.It.Is? (Back by popular demand)


Cows, here and across much of Africa, have been the most important animal for eons — the foundation of economies, diets, traditions. But now grazable land is shrinking. Water sources are drying up. A three-year drought in the Horn of Africa that ended last year killed 80 percent of the cows in this part of Kenya and shattered the livelihoods of so many people…

The global camel population has doubled over the last 20 years, something the U.N. agency for agriculture and investment attributes partly to the animal’s suitability amid climate change. In times of hardship, camels produce more milk than cows. Many cite an adage: The cow is the first animal to die in a drought; the camel is the last…

But among mammals, the camel is almost singularly equipped to handle extremes. Camels can go two weeks without water, as opposed to a day or two for a cow. They can lose 30 percent of their body weight and survive, one of the highest thresholds for any large animal. Their body temperatures fluctuate in sync with daily climate patterns. When they pee, their urine trickles down their legs, keeping them cool. When they lie down, their leathery knees fold into pedestals that work to prop much of their undersides just above the ground, allowing cooling air to pass through.

One recently published paper, perhaps straying from science to reverence, called them a “miracle species.”

— Chico Harlan, from “How Climate Change is Turning Camels into the New Cows” (Washington Post, April 17, 2024)

Read more here.


Notes:

  • Post Title: Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.

Monday Morning Wake Up Call (Time to get moving…)

Egret on the move. More photos from this morning’s walk here.

T.G.I.F.: Don’t let the clock cut up your life in pieces

I sit up late dumb as a cow,
which is to say
somewhat conscious with thirst and
hunger, an eye for the new moon
and the morning’s long walk
to the water tank. Everywhere
around me the birds are waiting
for the light. In this world of dreams
don’t let the clock cut up
your life in pieces.

Jim Harrison, “Rumination” from Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems, by Jim Harrison


Notes:

  • More DK Photos of a Juvenile Egret at Cove Island Park on April 18 2024 here.
  • Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.

where I simply look…the moment’s chance (9 sec)


What happens every day is what’s surprising. The treasure’s never where I look to find it but where I simply look — the sky, the wind, sunrise, a silver arc, the moment’s chance.

— Ursula K. Le Guin, from “The Everyday (At Kishamish)” in “Finding My Elegy: New and Selected Poems”


Feather blowing in the wind. Twilight. 5:52 am. April 17, 2024. Cove Island Park. Stamford, CT.

More photos from this morning’s walk here.